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Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic brings a film noir feel to a futuristic Earth where human-like renegade androids called replicants are hunted by blade runner assassins. However killing a replicant isn’t murder; it’s retirement. Perfectly paced for its haunting material, BLADE RUNNER is a moody detective story, but also ponders bigger issues about the meaning of life. If you knew that the day of your death was predetermined, but didn’t know the day, how would that affect the way you live your life?

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, INDIANA JONES) is the best blade runner around. Detective Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh, BLOOD SIMPLE) calls on his services after four top model replicants escaped an off-world site and since coming to Earth killed a police officer. Deckard is losing the taste for killing replicants, so Bryant keeps creepy detective Gaff (Edward James Olmos, STAND & DELIVER) on his tail. Meanwhile the renegade replicants, led by the military model Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer, TURKISH DELIGHT), begin searching for Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel, THE SHINING), the creator of the replicants. In his mission to retire Batty, Deckard visits Tyrell and meets the seductive woman Rachael (Sean Young, NO WAY OUT), who turns out to be the most advanced replicants he has ever seen. Sadly she doesn’t know she isn’t human.

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This short is featured on the Animation Show Vol. 3 DVD.

Many people will know Bill Plympton’s work from his early shorts that aired on MTV, like HOW TO KISS and YOUR FACE. His I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON! is one of the great (and tragically underrated) animated features. Sadly, SHUTEYE HOTEL is not one of his best efforts. Guest after guest turns up dead at the sleazy Shuteye Hotel. A female detective decides to spend the night as bait to the mysterious killer. However, when the bait gets caught in its own trap, this stakeout could be the detectives last.

With his recent feature HAIR HIGH, Plympton seems to be going through his film noir and horror period. This short sets up the story well, but the pay off is massively anticlimactic. Lifting elements from NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, Plympton’s homage feels more like a retread. The one gag story never made me laugh and when it was over I was left with the “that’s it?” feeling. While a variance on his typical colored pencil style, his art mixes uncolored line drawings with dramatic flares of color very effectively. Like always, the acting is good with its smart and funny exaggeration. This all goes back to the good set-up leading to a pay-off that quickly lets the air out of the whole production.

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I have a fascination with carnivals and circuses. Many filmmakers have as well Fellini, Bergman both made films set in the circus. So when I first read about this long forgotten film noir gem, I was hooked by the combination of a dark seedy crime story set in the carnival world. Surprisingly what I got was more than that — a thoughtful drama on the psychic con game.

Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power, THE MARK OF ZORRO) is a streetwise hustler who finds a home working as the talker at a carnival. He warms the crowd for low rent psychic Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN), who use to be in the big time until her partner/husband Pete (Ian Keith, QUEEN CHRISTINA) became lost in the bottle. Zeena and Pete’s legendary act was based on an intricate code, which allowed one person in the crowd to hold up objects obtained from the spectators and relate covertly what they were to the blindfolded “psychic” on stage. The code is worth a fortune and Stanton works his charms on Zeena to learn it. Now with the code, Stanton teams with the beautiful carnie girl Molly (Coleen Gray, RED RIVER) to go legit on the nightclub scene. But as his career skyrockets, Stanton gets greedy and hooks up with the cool and beautiful psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker, CALL NORTHSIDE 777) to turn his mentalist act into a medium.

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Brian DePalma’s adaptation of James Ellroy’s famed crime novel perfectly displays why the complex story has taken so long to reach the screen, because so much has to be crammed into two hours. The characters suffer from too many emotional leaps as well as an ending that tells the solution of the mystery instead of showing us.

Officer Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert (Josh Hartnett, SIN CITY) is an ambitious young cop and we know this because he tells us in voice over. The L.A. police department needs a funding bill passed, so they stage a benefit boxing fight between Bucky, a former pro, and fellow officer and former pro fighter Leland “Lee” Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING). This raises the two cops up in the ranks of the department. Now as partners, they quickly become good friends. Bucky even gets close to Lee’s girl Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson, MATCH POINT). Lee is always out for the top collar, but he drops everything when the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner, TV’s THE L WORD) is found in a vacant lot.

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This neo-noir simmers with sin and corruption. J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST) is a former cop who worked the seedy streets of Chinatown where he eventually became so disillusioned by the violence and sleaze that he left the force and became a private eye. However, that move still doesn’t remove him from violence and sleaze as he becomes notorious for making his living taking incriminating pictures of people. His life seems to be trapped in a vicious circle of meaning well, but always causing others to get hurt.

Then walks in his next case, Mrs. Mulwray wants her husband Hollis (Darrell Zwerling, GREASE) followed, because she suspects that he is cheating on her with a younger woman. So Gittes watches the big wig in the water department as he battles others in the city government who want to build a new dam to supply much needed water to the drought plagued city of Los Angeles. When Gittes and his men get shots of Hollis with the young girl, they end up on the front page of the paper, which is followed by the real Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway, NETWORK) wanting to sue and finally Hollis’ murder.

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Similar to many 1950s crime/message movies, THE PHENIX CITY STORY distinguishes itself with a raw and unflinching look at violence that was uncommon for the era. Based on the true story of Phenix City, Alabama, the film chronicles the men who stood up to 100 years of organized crime in an effort to clean up their town.

The film begins with a very dated documentary segment, which interviews some of the real life people involved in the story. Because it is completely separate from the fictionalized narrative, its weakness can be quickly forgotten. It’s like a bad newsreel was just tacked onto a good movie.

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This modern film noir plays well for its first two acts, but jumps the tracks in the end. It wants to be a film noir, but it wants a happy ending, which is actually vicious when one thinks about it. Moreover, the criminals are so stupid in the end that one cannot believe they would be smart enough to pull off their original crimes in the first place.

Charles Schine (Clive Owen, CLOSER) is an advertising exec, whose daughter, Amy (Addison Timlin, film debut), is suffering from Type 1 diabetes. His wife, Deanna (Melissa George, 2005’s THE AMITYVILLE HORROR), and him worry constantly about their child’s health and the financial strain that it puts on their family. One morning, Charles rides to work on the train and realizes he has no money to pay for his ticket. Sexy stranger Lucinda Harris (Jennifer Aniston, TV’s FRIENDS) offers to pay for him, which Charles feels obligated to pay back.

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Samuel Fuller’s gritty film noir, PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, follows the shadowy tale of a ditzy dame and her three-time loser. Candy (Jean Peters, NIAGARA) is delivering a package for her abusive ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley, THE PHENIX CITY STORY). While on the subway, her purse is pickpocketed by Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark, JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG), a three-time loser who just got out of jail on his last rap.

What both Skip and Candy don’t know is that in Candy’s wallet is a strip of microfilm that Russian spies are after. FBI agent Zara (Willis Bouchey, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE) was on the subway when Skip pinched the film. So while Zara enlists Capt. Dan Tiger (Murvyn Vye, ROAD TO BALI) to help find the thief, Joey pressures Candy to use her “contacts” to do the same. Tiger calls on the services of grifter Moe Williams (Thelma Ritter, REAR WINDOW) to lead them to Skip.

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Arthur Penn is best known for his revolutionary BONNIE & CLYDE. NIGHT MOVES is a thriller/neo-noir that finds a way to use the actions of a genre to embody its main character.

Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION) plays former pro-football player turned private eye Harry Moseby. The character has an internal need to figure everything and everyone in his life out. However, for as much as he wants to believe he is in control of his investigation, the mystery is playing itself out around him with or without his involvement.

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This homage to classic film noir is unlike any film noir that has come before. Set in a modern high school, the characters talk like they’re straight out of the MALTESE FALCON or THE BIG SLEEP.

Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, MYSTERIOUS SKIN) is a loner, whose girlfriend Emily Kostach (Emilie de Ravin, TV’s LOST) has left him and gotten herself mixed up with some shady dealings. Right from the get-go we know she is died. We flashback to two days before her untimely demise to follow the events that led to her death and then follow Brendan as he tries to piece the murder together.

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